West Valley Focus

RESEDA : Tour Arranger Sings Praises of Bicycle Travel

Hima Singh sings the songs of adventure to distant places. She can tell the tales of bicycling and hiking in exotic lands and experiencing treasures in rich cultures.

And she helps people sample those treasures by organizing bicycle tours to her native Nepal and other Asian countries.

Singh, who moved to Reseda three years ago, said she is very familiar with bicycle travel--a bicycle was her main form of transportation during her college days from 1978 to 1982 in Nepal.

Singh's parents run a travel agency in Nepal, long a popular destination for bicycle tours. So it was easy for Singh to begin organizing the bike tours.

Today, she arranges bike tours for groups of six to eight people who want to see such countries as China, Vietnam, Bhutan and Nepal and to experience different Asian cultures.

Travel has always been in her blood, Singh said. "My family has always been in the travel industry."

After graduating from college, Singh completed courses in hotel management in Switzerland, England and the United States. Then, she returned to Nepal to help out in her family's travel agency.

A few years ago, she opened a Santa Monica branch of the agency to market tours to India, Nepal and China. But that agency failed in the late 1980s after the Tian An Men Square uprising, upheavals in Tibet, the closing of the Nepal-India border and other political tensions led to mass tour cancellations.

After that, she went to work organizing bicycle tours for Asian Pacific Adventures, a Los Angeles travel agency that specializes in such tours.

Singh said she can help people with any type of tour ranging from first-class accommodations and a rental car to very inexpensive accommodations and hiking or bicycling. Her preference is clear.

"It is much more fun to see a town by walking than in a car," she said.